


Black Friday is Coming

by sunshineflying



Series: A Song of Trash and Fire [21]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Ben/Rey relationship, Black Friday, F/M, Hux is definitely cut out for ruthless black friday shopping, Hux/Poe relationship, Hux/Rey sibling relationship, Jane Solo the cutest Reylo baby in this fic verse, Jane just wants a doll, Rey queen of chaos, Shopping, Unca Hugs is MVP
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-25
Updated: 2019-11-25
Packaged: 2021-02-18 11:55:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21560758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunshineflying/pseuds/sunshineflying
Summary: Now that they've settled into their lives many years after the Great Porno Debacle of 2019 (aka, the main fic A Song of Trash and Fire), Rey and Hux are as close as siblings, and they go out shopping on Black Friday together because Rey's daughter wants a very specific toy for Christmas, and Hux has been known to spoil his niece rotten.Just a quick little ficlet of Black Friday shopping shenanigans between Rey and Hux, written for Reyuxmas 2019.
Series: A Song of Trash and Fire [21]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1049915
Comments: 5
Kudos: 22
Collections: Reyuxmas 2019





	Black Friday is Coming

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much to Christa, my co-author on the main fic, for beta reading this for me!
> 
> Check out the Reyuxmas fest on Twitter @reyuxmas for a list of themes covering the next six weeks! I hope you enjoy my entry for week 1: Thanksgiving.

“Wait — you’re actually going? Like, you’re going to leave the house and battle the crowds?”

Poe sounds incredulous, which is honestly a little insulting to Hux. He’s lounging on the sofa, the house finally clean after hosting all of their friends for Thanksgiving, their dog snoozing peacefully on his bed by the fireplace. There’s nothing to be heard — save for Poe’s shock, of course — but the crackling of the wood.

“Yes, I’m going,” Hux says with a nod.

Confused, Poe plops down onto the sofa next to him and allows Hux to rest his feet on his thighs. “How’d you get roped into that?” he wonders aloud.

Hux sighs. “Rey.”

Poe looks to his husband critically. “What?”

“She used Jane, of course. Jane wants one of those dolls… the life-size ones with the matching outfit and the hair she can play with?” Hux explains. “Rey told me that they’d run out if we didn’t go get one tomorrow, and I know fuck all about toys, so I said I’d go. One store, one item, _done_.”

Chuckling, Poe says, “Oh, you’re not just going to one store. Rey _loves_ Black Friday shopping.”

Hux narrows his eyes. Rey _promised_.

——

Hux pulls into the drive of the Solo family’s home at a quarter to two in the morning. Though most stores had opened before that, Hux managed to talk Rey into at least letting him have a few hours of sleep before they went shopping. She bounds excitedly out to the car, a bright smile on her face.

He really doesn’t understand how she can be so energetic at such an hour, but assumes it has something to do with Solo’s coffee-making skills.

Whatever the reason, he’s doing this for Jane. And it’s going to be good.

Rey’s like his sister. Arguably one of his best friends. They’ve been through a lot, both separately and together. This will be good for them, even if Hux would rather be in bed.

“Where to?” he asks as Rey buckles herself in.

“We should get some coffee, but we can get that at the mall, where everything else is,” she says breathlessly.

Hux glances over, raising an eyebrow at her. 

“What?” she asks bluntly.

“The _mall_?”

Rey’s smile turns coy and she shrugs. “Yeah. I mean, if we’re there, we can get the doll, but then we can get a couple other things, too. I need to get something for Ben while he’s not around, which is hard to do.”

Flatly, Hux says, “He’d never leave the house if he could get away with it.”

“And usually he doesn’t leave, because he says he has story inspiration,” Rey quips back. “I think it’s bullshit about half the time, but… whatever. We don’t often go shopping without each other, though, which is why this is so important.”

“So… more than one store.”

Rey winces, looking only half-guilty. “Please?”

He puts the car in reverse and backs out of the driveway, bracing himself for the night ahead.

The sting of being deceived dissipates slightly when Rey offers to buy him whatever he’d like from La Colombe. Hux of course gets a super strong cold brew, regardless of how cold it is outside, and sips on it as he waits for Rey to receive her fancy chocolatey drink. 

“Can we at least get the doll first?” Hux asks, his one and only plea.

Rey smiles. “Of course.”

She leads him down the hallway, through the massive, slow-moving crowd, thankful that there’s at least a subdued silence over them at such an hour, so they can hear each other. 

“Jane’s very lucky to have you,” Rey says, apropos of nothing. “I mean it. I’ve always sort of wondered what life for my kids would be like, especially with Ben, because neither of us have siblings. I’m really grateful she has you.”

Hux glances over. He looks down his nose at Rey, grappling with the odd feeling twisting in his gut. Pride? Happiness? A sense of family?

Whatever it is, it’s unfamiliar and doesn’t mix well with his cold brew. 

“She’s a good kid,” Hux says finally. “And she deserves a better childhood than either of us had.”

Rey smiles warmly and nudges Hux with her elbow. “She’s already got that, largely thanks to you.”

“Oh, no.” Hux shakes his head. “I only buy her treats every now and then.”

“You’re an _uncle_ ,” Rey says. “That’s what you _do_. And I’m really grateful for that.”

Hux lets out a strangled noise, somewhere between a groan and a laugh.

“Alright, alright, no more emotions,” Rey concedes. 

She rolls her eyes, and for a moment Hux can’t decipher whether he’s been rude or not. Erring on the side of caution, he says, “She’s a good kid. I don’t mind treating her to special things from time to time. But she’s a good kid because of you and Solo, loath as I am to admit it.”

His words put a smile back on Rey’s face, and with Hux’s discomfort in expressing emotions in mind, she allows the conversation to end.

They step into the massive crowd that is the toy store, which of course is advertising the very doll that Jane wants in the front windows. There are crowds lined up around piles of boxes, where two very harried-looking staff are trying to moderate the items. “One doll per customer!” a woman is shouting over the crowd. 

“I’ll look over here for other things,” Rey says, trying to squeeze her way out of the throng of people. “Good luck.”

Hux looks wholly unamused.

He doesn’t stand for any of the pleas from mothers to let them cut in front of him in line. They try to appeal to his emotions, but Hux stands his ground. He’s waiting in line just like everyone else, and will get his doll when it’s his turn, not letting some other person go before him.

Only one woman actually gets mad at him, which is shocking to him. He’d expected more anger.

He successfully navigates his way to the front of the line, asks for the doll in the purple dress, Jane’s favorite, and gets the last one in the store. He pays for it immediately, not even thinking twice about the absurd price even given the holiday sale. For Jane, he’d do pretty much anything. 

Rey beams at him as she sees his successful purchase, and has to really restrain herself from hugging him. “There, all done,” Hux says, a weak but hopeful statement to deter her from doing more shopping.

“Ha!” Rey laughs. “Yeah, right.”

He manages to talk Rey into bringing the doll out to the car, because it’s in a rather large and unwieldy box. When they re-enter the mall, it feels like there’s a huge weight lifted from his shoulders. “I’ll follow your lead,” he says, knowing that’ll take the most pressure off of him. 

“You’re the best,” Rey says with a grin.

She hoops her arm through his, an attempt not to lose each other in the massive crowd, and together they brave the throngs of people in pretty much every store.

They explore the video games, the clothing, some other toys for Jane… Rey even asks if they can go into a pet store, because she insists on getting a toy for Hux and Poe’s dog, Chester. It’s an odd concept, gifting to a dog, but Hux allows it. Now that Rey and Ben are financially stable, he’s all for letting them spend as needed without monitoring too closely. His instinct to coddle them in that way has finally been shed after years of watching them work to get back on their feet.

“Aren’t you going to get anything for Poe?” Rey asks as they meander back towards where they entered, hands full of shopping bags, most belonging to Rey.

Hux shrugs. “I just haven’t found the right thing yet.”

Rey elbows him and says conspiratorially, “Jewelry, perhaps?”

Hux turns his head and looks down his nose at her again. “I already got him a ring and married him. What more could he want?”

“I dunno,” Rey replies. “Men like watches, don’t they? Let’s just look.”

“He’s a hippie,” Hux argues as he allows himself to be dragged into the nearest jewelry store.

She ignores him, peering down into the various display cases of jewelry, seeking out the watches. On her way, Rey gets hung up on a case with necklaces made for moms. You can add gemstones as children are born, a different stone for each child’s birthstone. “That’s pretty,” she says, peering down at it.

“It is,” Hux agrees.

Rey smiles, looking a little sad as though she’ll never actually own the necklace she’s eyeing up, and together they move on to the watch counter. As she does, Hux subtly pulls his phone from his pocket and snaps a photo to send to Ben later.

Down the way, at the watches, Rey is already pointing to one and smiling. Hux approaches hesitantly; he can almost guarantee he won’t like what she’s found.

But, much to his surprise, Rey is right on the mark. She’s pointing to a simple watch, with stones around the face of it, but a rustic leather strap. It looks modest, not worth the price tag, but Hux knows better. The price tag is probably a result of the sourcing of the leather and how it was made.

And the smirk on Rey’s face says she knows exactly what she’s found: the watch for Poe.

Even though he’s spent a pretty penny already, he has money to spare, and Christmas _is_ his favorite holiday after all. It takes next to no time at all for him to find a sales associate and hand over his credit card. Poe _needs_ this watch.

Rey looks smugly satisfied as they leave the jewelry store and reach the doors they’d entered through hours and hours before. She’s yawning now, just as the sun rises over the horizon outside. “Were we inside that long?” Hux asks as they leave the mall.

“Yep,” Rey nods. “Now you can go home and sleep. I’ve got some mom-ing to do.”

“I’m sure you could get Ben to care for Jane while you sleep,” Hux says.

Rey shrugs and says, “I’m sure I could. But I want to spend time with her. I don’t want her memories of the day after Thanksgiving to be her mum sleeping and ignoring her.”

Hux is quiet; Rey has an immense fear of Jane feeling abandoned or ignored — a completely unfounded fear given how loving her parents are. But Rey’s childhood was nothing like Jane’s, and Hux recognizes that. He can only hope that Solo will be able to convince her to rest.

They load up the back of his car with all of their bags, and Hux drives her home. She dozes off on the way, yawning whenever she wakes, and Hux finds himself yawning right along with her. She giggles and thanks him again as he pulls into the drive to drop her off.

“Thanks again,” she says, eyes full of joy.

“Of course,” he nods. “Now sleep.”

Rey laughs, shaking her head like she refuses to let that happen. Once she’s safely inside, Hux drives back home, just in time to see Poe out for a walk with Chester. He takes that opportunity to sneak the watch and any other gifts he’d bought upstairs where Poe won’t find them.

Though he wants to at least stay awake to say hello, Hux can’t quite fight the tiredness sinking into his bones. He can’t stay up all night or survive on so few hours of sleep like he used to. Flopped onto their unmade bed in the clothes he’d just shopped in, try as he may to fight it, Hux falls fast asleep.


End file.
